I would have gone that evening back to the regiment, but the friar met me in the corridor and informed me that I would be ordered to escort that most loyal and noble lady back to the French frontier as a personal mission of the highest honour.

I was inclined to laugh at him.

He himself is a cheery and jovial person and he laughed with me quite readily--but I got the order before dark all right.

It was rather a job, as the Alphonsists were attacking the right flank of our whole front and there was some considerable disorder there.
I mounted her on a mule and her maid on another.

We spent one night in a ruined old tower occupied by some of our infantry and got away at daybreak under the Alphonsist shells.